Well......

Not much to say as of today. Still no word from the Embassy. Just praying and trusting in the Lord's timing of it all!

I miss my other three children something fierce! Thanks to our amazing family, I know they are fine and having loads of fun without us! If you read this guys, I love you and miss you so much!! I'm sorry! I know I told you I wouldn't be gone as long this time, but here I am and it's now been two weeks!! Keep praying! The Lord is faithful!! He will bring us home!! Soon and very soon we will all be together, once and for all!

Jeremy is probably going to go ahead home this weekend. Please pray for us as we do not like being apart! It has been wonderful having him here with us! I miss him already and he hasn't left yet. ; )

Thanks to all of you who have been praying, believing, hoping, reading, trusting,...right along with us! We truly appreciate each and every one of you!

Sorry it's been so long!

Well, as I'm sure you figured we are still in Haiti. We have received the news that we are ready for a visa appt but no appt has been scheduled as of yet. Hopefully, we will receive it next week! We are having a great time with the kids while we wait! Jeremy flew in last Tuesday and the kids are really enjoying having their Papa here too! We plan to check in with the Embassy yet again on Monday. Thank you all for your continued prayers! The Lord is faithful and we are seeing His hand at work!!

Bon Fet, Noah!!

We love you! The next one will be celebrated in Evansville, IN!!

Approvals

We received final approval today for the kids' visas!!!! We are so excited around here!! We hope to know the date of our visa appointment tomorrow!! Thank you for all of your prayers!!!!

Happy Father's Day!!

Happy Father's Day to the best daddy and friend I know! You bring me such joy! I love you!

Busy Busy Busy

Thanks to Sandy, I can post these arrival pictures! She e-mailed the ones she took when I arrived. No laughing please! ; )




It was a busy day today! We got up nice and early, as usual, and had pancakes for breakfast. The kids had church, we had cake for two little girls' birthdays, then the fun of the day.....we had three inflatable pools and threw a pool party! I wanted to post pictures but realized I forgot my cable to load them on the computer so I'll have to share pictures when I get back. They had soooooo much fun!! I can't wait to show you pictures.

Tomorrow we will go to church and then we are going to have pool time for the older nursery kids! I'm sure they are going to LOVE it!

Thank you all for continuing to pray for us. We hope to be home next week!

Quick Update

I'm here and doing well! The kids are so excited about going home! They ask every little bit if when the visa is finish do they get to go. I respond YES, and they give a HUGE smile!! I hope to post some pictures tonight! Thank you for continuing to pray for us!

Apparently it's time!

Update: I'm leaving today! I'm flying on frequent flyer miles so this was my option. I'll try to post updates as I have them! Thank you to all who are praying!!



I am excited to tell you that I will be in Haiti by Monday! We are expecting to have our visa appointment next week! So, I'm checking flights and will be leaving very soon!! Please pray for me to be able to get the flights I need as well as for things to continue to move along as they have been! God is so good and so faithful! We are overwhelmed by His grace that continues to be so sufficient! Our God is an awesome God!!

Pictures

What a blessing!

"Yeah, I'm cute! I know it!!

"Excuse me, but has anyone seen the large ribbons for my hair?
These small ones just aren't going to cut it!!"

Finally Finished!!

Many of you may remember this post of the boys' room. Yes, it's been done for a while. We finished their shelves and they have different bedding(thanks to the Mielke's), but otherwise it has been done for a while. The girls' room, though, took much longer. I had the goofy idea to make the blankets and pillows instead of buying them. I'm glad I did, but man it took forever!!! At any rate it is finished!! Their room is officially ready for them to come home!

Celebrating!

We have all three passports and are waiting for our final approvals from DHS! We could possibly have those in the next few days. After that, we are on to visa appointments!! Praise the Lord for our children coming home soon!! We are hearing the Embassy may be closed next week, so we'll see, but no matter what we are one day closer!! Praise God!!

It's been busy....

This is going to be one of those one line, one picture updates. So much has happened in the past two weeks that I am spinning!

First up, our last day of school!!! Hurray! We made it jammie day and it was so fun!! We are all excited about being out of school for the summer.

So, that was on Friday, May 16th. On Saturday, May 17th we decided we would drive to Jeremy's dad house near Houston, TX. We left on May 18th and arrived on May 19th.
That was a crazy 4 days!

Jeremy had work to do, so we played in the pool!

Finally, his work was finished and we took our traditional trip to the Ice Cream Parlor in Galveston!

We drove home on Friday, driving straight through and arriving home at 2:00am. We worked in the yard all day and then off to see Elias since he was in Evansville for the weekend. I took my camera but was too busy laughing to take any pictures.

Sunday was church and then our youth group came over for a bonfire. They are a great group of kids! Love you guys!

As you know we got news of Hope's passport so we knew when we got home there was lots of work to do. We made a list during our drive of everything we wanted to do before the kids come home. So our Memorial Day was spent running errands, buying paint, and praying it would quit raining so we could work in the yard again. No such luck on the rain, but all the supplies were purchased to finish up the projects that have been hanging over our heads.

Tuesday became a work day full of painting and pillow making. My wonderful Mom and Mother-in-law came over and made pillows while I painted. They were awesome!
Thank you so much!

Thanks to the pillows and curtains that were created the girls' room is finally nearing completion. I'll post pictures of it after I finish putting it all together today!!

So there you have it. I would love to lay around all day, but apparently our kids are coming home soon, so all those things I've been saying I need to do before they get home....I'm actually going to have to do them now. Pray for me, the list is still somewhat long. :)

One down, two to go.....

Hey blogland! I wanted to let you know that on Thursday morning I received word that Hope had her passport!! We were on cloud nine all day!! So, one down and two to go. Once we have all three I will look at making my arrangements to fly down for the last few steps! Now we are in "kick it in gear" mode. Trying, like mad, to get things done around here so when they are home we can just enjoy for a little while. It's so surreal right now to think that we are actually sooooo close to bringing them home. The Lord is so faithful!! We rejoice in the work of His hands!

Out again....

Well, I believe this time it is for real! We are out of MOI with authorizations for passports! Praise God!! We are assuming they will go to Immigration on Monday! Hallelujah!

My Baby Girl

I love this picture of my baby girl. I know you can't see her face, but she and I spent lots of time working puzzles and laughing together. This picture takes me back. Soon, baby girl, you will be here working puzzles with your Manman. I just happen to LOVE working them too!

Correction.....

Apparently there was some misinformation and we are not quite in Immigration yet.

Praying for good news soon!

Psalm 27:13 I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
that I would see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.

I believe!!

Out of MOI!!!!!

We just found out that we are out of MOI and in Immigration for the printing of the passports! We are so excited! We're praying this step goes quickly and we have three beautiful passports in hand very soon!!

Reaching the End

Ok, just to get rid of the "feel sorry for me because I cut myself post" : ) I thought I would let you know there isn't a whole lot of news yet. The attorney was hopeful we would be out of MOI last Friday but it didn't happen just yet. We are hopeful (and she is too) that we will be out sometime this week. Our parent liaison is in Haiti this week so hopefully we will have some good news soon!

For those of you that aren't in an adoption or don't know how these things work, this is what is left.....

• Exit MOI

• Off to immigration for printing of Passports

• Take Passports to DHS for final approval of I-600 (Orphan Investigations have already been completed and all three were declared orphans by US standards)

• Medical Exam

• Visa Appointment

• Fly Home with our children!!

We are finally reaching the end here people. It is getting so close and we are beyond excited about the idea of bringing our kids home! Please continue to pray with us that these final steps will go smoothly and we will finally have our family complete!

I wanted to share a scripture that the Lord gave me when I was in Haiti. I think we all go through moments of, "Lord, please bring my children home!" I kept "hearing" Isaiah 43, so I turned there and here is what I read......

5 Fear not, for I am with you;
I will bring your descendants from the east,
And gather you from the west;
6 I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’
And to the south, ‘Do not keep them back!’
Bring My sons from afar,
And My daughters from the ends of the earth—

I thank God for His faithfulness to His Word!

If I could turn back time......

I would have wore a glove.

Sorry, I couldn't resist posting my most recent adventure. Turns out Exact-O knives are quite sharp. Excellent for slicing fingers and severing nerves. : )

I.......

Thanks Angela!

i am: first a child of God, second a wife, third a mother, and fourth a missions committee leader.
i think: I am so blessed with an amazing husband and six wonderful children!
i know: in whom I have belief!
i want: my children home.
i have: more than I could need.
i wish: there were more hours in the day, and that I lived in a warmer climate.
i hate: poverty, sickness, strife, sin,.......
i miss: Mia, Noah & Hope
i fear: nothing but the Lord (Psalm 34)
i feel: at peace.
i hear: Camden and Ali playing with Daisy.
i smell: coffee, wonderful coffee.
i crave: sweets, and did I mention coffee.
i search: for ways to run a better house, though seem to fail miserably.
i wonder: when I will grow up.
i regret: many things from my life BC, but don't dwell there.
i love: my Lord, my family, my friends, my church, my country, my home away from home
i ache: to hold all of my children at the same time and I think that is why God gave me such big thighs, so they will all fit. Oh wait, maybe that was the sweets and not God that made them so big. Shootamaroo!
i care: deeply for the children and staff of Three Angels!
i always: cry when I leave Haiti.
i am not: as disciplined as I should be.
i believe: I will see Mia, Noah and Hope in our home soon!
i dance: well....
i sing: always.
i cry: when I think about how good God has been to me.
i don't always: keep my priorities in line.
i fight: the urge to do things my way, not God's.
i write: when I need to.
i never: skydive.
i listen: to praise and worship music all the time.
i need: to lose some weight.
i am happy about: the life God has given me.

I'm not going to pass this on to anyone specifically, because I haven't kept up with who has already done it. So, I guess I'll leave it with.....if you haven't done this yet, now it's your turn.